Where Do I Begin?
by ceridwen-amyed
Summary: This is kinda weird but *shrugs* I'm in a weird mood. Song fic featuring Angsty!Christian. Need I say more?


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Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, all characters belong to The Moulin Rouge and Baz Luhrmann and the song is _(Where Do I Begin) Love Story _by Andy Williams. I've taken a few liberties with the lyrics to make them fit this. :)

* * * *

White. The symbol of purity, innocence. Life. The infinite. An endless possibility, a blank canvas waiting to be transformed into a glittering painting, a witty piece of prose, a poem meant for a sweetheart, the song that would be hummed by every man on his way to work. Something real and true from the heart.

The blank sheet mocked him. 

It sat in his typewriter, patiently awaiting its own metamorphosis. But nothing would come.

Christian stared at his typewriter, bottle of Absinthe hanging loosely from his left hand. He took a swig from it and ran a hand over his face.

~

__

Where do I begin

To tell the story of how great a love can be?

The sweet love story that is older than the sea

The simple truth about the love she brought to me

~

The typewriter flickered and the paper coloured itself green. Wonderful. Any hopes for actually writing _their story_ today was gone.

Every morning, Christian got up, considered shaving, deciding eventually there was no point, he would only have to do it tomorrow and it was so _tiring_ shaving everyday. Then he would sit down at his typewriter and stare at it, eventually gathering his wits about him and putting a fresh piece of paper in the roll. This was always the best part of the day: the possibility that today might be the day, might be the time when he would finally write _it_ always cheered him. Sometimes he would even hum a little as he threaded the paper through the typewriter. This always took a while because the people who stayed close to Christian had realised that this was the best time of day and subsequently visited him with gifts of food (but no drink: he had plenty of that) and gossip from the outside world.

But then when the people and their gay, if a little forced, voices had gone and left him with his work nothing happened. His fingers would poise over the keys and flex. 

But _their story_ was never written. He would sit hopefully for an hour or so and then he would start to type. It always started out as _their story_, but then his hands would defer from typing those words and something else came out. A poem, the beginnings of a story, sometimes a whole short story. These appeared in newspapers and magazines but Christian never sold them. He always discarded the pieces of paper as soon as they were written but then someone, usually Toulouse, would dig through his rubbish and sell them. It was always a great surprise to Christian when his cheque arrived in the post, accompanied by a very polite letter asking when the next story would be ready. Occasionally, he even received a letter from a reader touched by his work. He tried to reply to these but his words came out muddled and confusing. He sent them anyway. Let them see how the great writer truly writes.

Christian shook his head, attempting to wave the fog out of his brain. He got up and stumbled to his bookshelf. It took him a while to find the book he was looking for, partly because he was having trouble focusing his eyes but namely because the book who was looking for wasn't on the shelf at all. After a brief search, he found it under the bed. Sitting on the mattress, he ran his fingers over the cover.

__

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

__

Well, thought Christian morosely_. I have a title then. The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Christian and Satine._ He sighed. He'd been such a fool. When did love ever end well? Especially lovers who were not supposed to love one another… All those months, _Romeo and Juliet_ had been on his shelf, preparing to mock him. He'd read parts of it out loud to Satine – why hadn't they seen it? Juliet had died, or at least pretended to die, and Romeo equally ready to die rather then face life without his love.

After Satine's death, and enough time had passed for Christian to gain some control over himself, he'd formed a plan. He waited for Toulouse to leave his apartment a few weeks after the funeral and run quietly upstairs into Toulouse's' kitchen and looked in all the drawers for the biggest knife. He'd held it, run his finger along its edge, watching the blood drip across the cold steel and then onto the floor. And then he'd wiped the knife clean and put it carefully back in the drawer and scurried back downstairs to hide again. 

It had been easier for Romeo: he didn't have to hold Juliet as she died and promise that he'd go on. Romeo hadn't had to think of anybody else. He just let the grief sweep through him and control him.

Christian put the book carefully back on the shelf and then sat down in front of the typewriter, suddenly determined to write.

~

__

Where do I start?

With her first hello, she gave meaning to this empty world of mine

There'll never be another love, another time

She came into my life and made the living fire

~

How could he write it? How could he even think of writing it? She had been his muse, his love. Without her, there could be no more stories or songs. There could only be pain and an awful blackness, spots of blood punctuating it like full stops, or the dot of an exclamation mark. It surrounded him, pinning him to his chair, unable to move. He shut his eyes, but the red lingered on and danced for him.

He had to get out.

~

__

She filled my heart

~

Paris was cold. Dark, pregnant skies threatened to spill their load. Christian stared up at the ruins of the Moulin Rouge, the hollow windmill still turning slowly in the wind. He watched it numbly. The aching emptiness within him grew with every turn of the windmill until he could barely stand it.

~

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She filled my heart with very special things

With angels sounds, with wild imaginings

She filled my soul

With so much love

~

He took another swig of the bottle of Absinthe he didn't remember buying and shut his eyes tightly. The squeak and groan of the sails was fading, _her_ humming voice growing stronger as the alcohol kicked in. The tune she was humming was familiar. He opened his eyes again when he was sure that she was there.

She was. He knew that she would be. After all, if the Green Fairy was simply a product of his own mind, surely it could be his muse?

~

__

That anywhere I go I'm never lonely

With her around, who could be lonely?

~

She smiled at him, looking like Christmas with her red hair and green dress sparkling brightly. She laughed and blew him a kiss and Christian smiled back. He laughed shortly. Perhaps it had all been a dream, perhaps he had drunk one glass too many and had hallucinated. Perhaps he was waking up, stretching and she was there, right next to him, waiting to be touched.

He stretched out a hand towards her. The distance seemed impossible and he stumbled forward drunkenly. She smiled encouragingly and held out her own hand gracefully. Almost there…

His hand closed around nothing.

~

I reach for her hand

It's never there

~

He turned his back on the windmill and poured the rest of the Absinthe in the gutter. He had no need for it now. His feet guided him up the hill and he trusted them._ If you can't trust your own feet, who can you trust?,_ he thought and giggled when he realised how ridiculous it was. A group of whores stared at him and he smiled back, repeating what he'd just thought. They rolled their eyes and turned away. 

The smile faded from Christian's face as he realised where his trusty feet were guiding him. Damn them.

The outskirts of the graveyard were for the dregs of society. The poor, the drunk, the shamed. The whores. No matter how popular they were, no matter how much they sparkled, they all ended up here. On the edge.

He wanted to turn back, to run back to his safe warm garret, but his feet pulled him forward, insisting that he follow.

Her gravestone was rough and course, her name and other details roughly ground into the stone's surface. He'd wanted to give her more, a white angel perhaps, but he had no money. Nobody did; or, if they did, they didn't want to spend it on a dead whore. But he'd done what he could. A nearby tree had pieces of coloured glass hanging from it that he had hung there. They tinkled and scraped over each other at every movement of the tree. 

She would have liked that. She hated silence, always needed noise and music to be near to her.

Kneeling, Christian ran his fingers lightly over the engraved words on the stone. He sat back on his heels and examined the wilting flowers left there, shrivelling in the cold. He rearranged them as best he could and then placed his own offering, the empty bottle of Absinthe, in the centre of the dead roses.

~

__

How long does it last?

Can love be measured by the hours in the day?

I have no answers now, but this much I can say:

I know I'll need her, till the stars all burn away

But she's never there

~

"I want to make you a promise Satine," he said quietly. "I can't put up a new memorial for you, or even make your grave a tidy place. I can't face it up here, you see. It's so cold…." He shivered. "I know you understand. You hated the cold. You'd understand…"

He paused and then leant forward so suddenly he had to steady himself on the gravestone. He kissed her name and rested his forehead on the frozen stone.

"I'll write our story, love. Trust me, I will. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even the next day, but I will one day. I keep my promises. I'm trying already. I've written about twelve beginnings – I want it to be perfect. And it's hard to write about you, dear. How can I describe you, what I felt about you? Perhaps I shouldn't describe you…" he mused to himself, and then he laughed. "I can hear you darling, telling me to be quiet and get on with it. I can't write out here in the cold…" 

He smiled and then grimaced, forcing his legs to obey him, and stood up. He pressed his fingers to his lips and then touched the headstone.

"One day."

He turned to go and then paused. The glass in the tree tinkled and caught the light, winking at him. They sang the same melody the Green Fairy had hummed earlier and he recognised it finally. A warm hand seemed to touch his own and squeezed it.

__

I am always here, the glass sang in a courtesan's voice. _I live inside of you, the story waiting to be told. The song waiting to be sung. The poem waiting to be told._

__

I am here.

Don't be afraid. You may not know it all of the time but I am always with you.

I am always here.

~

__

How long does it last?

Can it be measured by the hours in the day?

I have no answers now, but this much I can say:

I know I'll need her, till the stars all burn away

And she'll be there.

~


End file.
